


Perfect (Guilty) Pleasure

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Pas De Deux [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 01:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10606623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Any, Any, guys night out."John invites Rodney along on adanseurs'guys night out. To celebrate being made into a swan. Or something.





	

Jennifer was teaching Madison’s dance class tonight, and class didn’t end for another fifteen minutes, so there was really no good reason for Rodney to be at the ballet school, but he was hoping to catch a glimpse of John dancing again. Rodney preferred to watch when John was practicing or dancing on his own informally (or for Rodney), and he rarely had the patience (or the ability to overcome his anxiety when he was separated from an experiment while it was running) to sit through an entire ballet performance, so slinking off to the practice studios was a perfect guilty pleasure.

Only when Rodney got to the studio where John usually did his practices, John wasn’t alone. He was sitting on the floor, barefoot and stretching out, covered in a fine sheen of sweat and wearing a serene expression. One of the other _danseurs premiers_ , a Southern redneck by the name of Mitchell, had just stepped into the studio from the other door and plopped down beside him.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding,” he drawled.

John arched an eyebrow. “Yes, hiding, and so secretively, given how I schedule this room at the same time every week and have done so for the past year.”

Mitchell was unmoved by John’s sarcasm. “You haven’t heard the news. Got any tips for playing a spoiled rich boy with parental relationship issues?”

John shoved Mitchell in the shoulder. “Not everyone could come from a perfectly loving, all-American family of career Air Force officers who are surprisingly cool about having a straight male ballet dancer in their ranks.”

Mitchell raised his eyebrows, and then realization crossed John’s face.

“Oh, hey, congratulations!” John grinned.

Mitchell waggled his eyebrows. “You know what that means, right?”

“You were cast as The Prince!”

The Prince in what? Rodney wondered.

Mitchell shoved John in the shoulder. “And who do you think was cast as The Swan, Shep?”

For a second, John looked elated. And then he frowned. “Oh no. Those leather pants. Who’s playing The Queen?”

“Vala.” Mitchell looked downright gleeful.

John groaned. “And The Girlfriend?”

“Jennifer.”

“Oh. That’s not so bad.”

“Naw. Anyways, the audition results are posted, and we were thinking - in order to start bonding as swans and prince, we should go for a guys’ night out. You in?”

“Sure,” John said, and Rodney bit his lip. He’d had plans to surprise John with a home-cooked meal (one that met both of their specific dietary restrictions) and maybe curl up on the couch and listen to an opera. Not very grand, but it would be just the two of them.

And then John said, “Can I bring Rodney?”

“Rodney? Oh, yeah. Your Raoul.”

“Ha ha. I am not sleeping with him because he’s our patron, he’s my boyfriend, and also he’s a guy.”

“Uh, sure. How is he at dancing?”

Rodney could keep a beat because he was also a musician, but everyone looked duck-footed next to John.

“Like it matters,” John said. “Evan always brings Ronon.”

“Point. Sure! Bring him along. It must be serious, then. If you’re bringing him to meet the rest of the corps.”

“It’s very serious to me,” John said.

“How serious is it to him?”

As a heart attack, Rodney thought, but he didn’t dare make a sound.

“That’s between him and me,” John said loftily. Rodney’s chest tightened. Did John think Rodney wasn’t serious about him?

“You know,” Mitchell said, “pretty much every other dancer in the corps would be shouting for joy at being cast as The Swan.”

“As soon as your back is turned, I’m going to do an ugly and smug victory dance, you can be sure.”

“Congratulations.” Mitchell heaved himself to his feet. “You will be an awesome Swan, and we will be awesome together.”

“Thanks, Mitchell.” John watched Mitchell leave the way he’d come, his expression pensive.

Rodney wondered what Mitchell had meant, asking John what he knew about being a spoiled rich boy with parental relationship issues. John just...never spoke of his family. Rodney had assumed he was an only child and both of his parents were dead or something. Rodney and John had only been dating for a couple of months, and their dates were either quick encounters at Rodney’s place because both of them were so busy, or a quick cup of coffee after Madison’s dance class. (Madison was delighted that Uncle Mer and Crazy Hair John were A Thing. John was still trying to figure out the pet name significance of ‘Mer’.)

Rodney knew John had wanted to be a ballet dancer ever since he could remember, having seen Swan Lake as a child, and that he’d trained long and hard to get where he was. John was great with teaching kids to dance, and he was very supportive of boys who wanted to learn to dance.

Rodney also knew what John looked like in the throes of passion, and in post-coital slumber, and first thing in the morning when he was frantic to get to the ballet studios on time, and in Rodney’s bed and in his shower. John was incredibly flexible and strong, and however rushed their couplings were, they were always fantastic. For a ballet dancer, John had terrible taste in music - Johnny Cash, all the time.

But what did Rodney really know about John, besides the way he kissed and how he made Rodney’s heart thump oddly every time they were in the same room?

John rising and picking up his dance bag startled Rodney out of his musings, and he cleared his throat.

John, who’d headed for the other door, paused and turned. He smiled, and Rodney’s heart did that odd thumping thing. “Hey, you here to pick up Madison? You know Jennifer’s teaching tonight.”

“Yes. I also just wanted to see you.”

John tucked his hands into the pockets of his zip-up hoodie. “Here I am.”

“Want to get coffee after?”

“Sure. By the way, some of the other dancers want to go out, guys’ night out. Boyfriends, of course, are invited,” John said, and Rodney realized this was the first time John had referred to Rodney as his boyfriend. Sure, he’d said it to Mitchell, but - they were boyfriends.

“Even boyfriends who don’t dance so well?”

John looked pleased. “Yes. I am pretty sure that you are one of the better-dancing boyfriends.”

“Sure. It’ll be nice to meet your friends,” Rodney said. He’d met most of the company’s top administrators - Elizabeth the artistic director, Daniel the choreographer - and had good professional relationships with them, but most of the dancers were strangers to him. Word seemed to have spread that he was one of the company’s bigger patrons, and any time he encountered a company dancer they were very polite, but it felt too much like politics, and Rodney hated politics. He was pretty sure Elizabeth thought he used his trips to pick up Madison from class as an opportunity to see how his investment was paying out.

“Excellent! We’re all meeting back here in a couple of hours. I need to get home and shower, but...coffee first, for sure.” John reached out, laced his fingers with Rodney’s, and Rodney’s heart did that odd thumping thing again.

*

As it turned out, _danseurs_ who weren’t wearing dance gear looked like ordinary men - at first glance. Rodney was pretty sure he was the only one who wasn’t tall and slender and graceful. All of the dancers had neat short hair, so Rodney was willing to hazard that the mountain of a man sporting dreads was someone’s boyfriend. The dancers were arrayed on the steps in front of the theater, wearing tight jeans and tight t-shirts and talking and laughing.

Rodney lingered at the bottom of the steps, keeping an eye out for John. Some of the other dancers were eyeing him warily, and he was pretty sure they thought he was some kind of creeper, but then John arrived, windblown and unfairly hot in a pair of black jeans and a tight white t-shirt. He was one leather jacket away from being Danny Zucko.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.” He paused beside Rodney, smiled at him. “Hey guys, this is Rodney, my boyfriend. Rodney, you remember Cam Mitchell, the other premier danseur, and the rest of the senior dancers in the corps - Evan Lorne, David Parrish, Jonas Quinn, Aiden Ford, Kevin Elliot.”

Aiden and Kevin looked terribly young, and Kevin said, eagerly, “Me, Aiden, Evan, and Jonas are the cygnets!”

Rodney had no idea what that meant, but he attempted to smile encouragingly. “That’s great!”

Evan didn’t look like a ballet dancer, all broad shoulders and muscular everything. He was probably great at lifting women, though. He was noticeably shorter than all the other dancers. He patted the giant man on the arm. “This is my boyfriend, Ronon. He’s a fireman.”

“Hi,” Ronon said. He looked amused.

About a dozen other younger, less-experienced dancers chimed in with their names - Walker and Stevens, Stackhouse and Markham, Dorsey and Toriel, Kennedy and Billick, Reed and Coughlin and so many others, more than Rodney could hope to remember. He smiled and waved tentatively.

“Where are we going dancing?” David asked.

Mitchell raised his eyebrows. “Well, John-boy has won the role of the glorious Swan, so this is his celebration. Swan gets to choose.”

John grinned. “Well, if I get to choose, then we’re going to Zoomies.”

There were some cheers and some groans, but before anyone could protest, John stepped to the edge of the sidewalk and raised an arm, flagging down a cab. Mitchell followed, and then several cabs crammed full of dancers formed a caravan into the heart of downtown.

Zoomies was a bright and bouncing place, all disco balls and laser lights and smoke, and young, lithe bodies dancing as far as the eye could see. Rodney paid the cover fee for him and John, but each of the other dancers paid their own, and then they were in the crowd. Rodney refused to drink anything but bottled water, knowing the proliferation of lemons in dance clubs with bars, but most of the dancers headed over to the bar, flagging down the young and attractive bartenders and ordering complicated-sounding drinks.

John made a beeline for the dance floor, towing Rodney with him, and started to dance. Rodney bobbed cautiously to the beat, but John twined his hands above his head and undulated, and cheers rose up all around him.

Given that ballet dancers spent basically their entire lives training themselves to maintain a certain type of posture, to pose their hands specifically, Rodney wondered if they forgot how to dance any other way, if club dancing or dirty dancing was beneath them or if they found it demeaning, but - no.

John could dance, and he could dance dirty, and he did it just as beautifully as he did ballet. The rest of the dancers spilled onto the floor, diving into the beat. Maybe it was a product of dancing together for years, maybe the dance floor was crowded, but they all arranged themselves close around John and went wild. Aiden and Jonas were twined around each other, moving fluidly and bonelessly, like a pair of serpents. Very sexy serpents. The dancers were all over each other and had people all over them, and Rodney edged away from the chaos, feeling terribly self-conscious. He didn’t belong in the center of all the beautiful people.

The only other person who looked about as awkward as Rodney felt was Ronon, who was shuffling arrhythmically at the edge of the crowd. But then Evan slid out of the crowd and proceeded to dance up and down Ronon like Ronon was a pole and Evan was a fireman.

Or possibly a stripper.

Ronon chuckled good-naturedly, let Evan have his fun, and then Mitchell and David and the other dancers gathered around them, laughing and dancing and pretending to be raucous frat boys waving dollar bills at Evan, who just hammed it up and kept on dancing.

Then a bigger crowd formed around the dancers, and Rodney edged out of the melee again. It must have been inherent in dancers, to be performers, to always seek the spotlight. Where being in the spotlight for anything other than giving a presentation or lecture terrified Rodney, Mitchell and the other dancers looked like they were having a grand time, and maybe he ought to leave them to it. After all, this was their celebration. They’d been made into swans, for whatever reason, and apparently being a swan was a big deal.

Rodney had just about given up dancing for good and retreated toward the bar for a bottle of water when John materialized from the crowd. He headed straight for Rodney, fire in his gaze, and before Rodney could protest, John caught Rodney in his arms and spun him back onto the dance floor. John pressed close, from shoulder to hip to thigh, swaying to the music half tempo, his gaze never leaving Rodney’s, and Rodney moved with him, hypnotized by the motion and the heat.

Rodney wasn’t sure how many songs they danced like that, just the two of them, but finally Rodney was out of breath, and he begged off for a drink.

John smiled and nodded and leaned in, pressed a lingering kiss to Rodney’s mouth.

He stumbled over to the bar and managed to wobble onto a barstool. The bartender looked nonplussed when all Rodney wanted was a bottle of water, but Rodney told the bartender to put all the dancers’ drinks on his tab, which cheered the man up considerably. Rodney uncapped the bottle and took a long pull, then turned to scan the dance floor in search of John.

John was dancing by himself, swaying and turning and shimmying to the music, and somehow, in the midst of all the other people, he was dancing apart from them, and he was dancing only for Rodney.

John caught Rodney’s gaze above the crowd, smirked, then tipped his head back and spun.

Rodney watched, entranced.

It was like some kind of rom-com cliche, but Rodney was pretty sure he and John were the only people in the room, John filling the space around him with every flick of his wrists, every shift of his feet, and Rodney yearning across the space between them.

Their trance was shattered by a very inebriated Kevin grabbing Rodney’s arm and dragging him back onto the dance floor. He shoved Rodney at John, who caught him before he fell.

“C’mon,” John breathed in Rodney’s ear. “Let’s get out of here and leave the kids.”

Rodney nodded, and then he, John, Mitchell, Evan, Ronon, Jonas, David, and Aiden were spilling out into the night. They hailed a couple of cabs and sped toward the outskirts of the city, back toward the theater and studios - and then beyond. To John’s apartment.

They crammed into the elevator, laughing breathlessly about their antics on the dancefloor, and John let them into his apartment.

He kicked off his shoes, hung his jacket on the coat rack just inside the door, and moved through the studio loft, turning on lamps so the entire space was lit with a soft glow. Evan made straight for the kitchen and came up with a bottle of wine. He opened it to let it breathe and went hunting through John’s cupboards for enough cups and glasses for everyone.

Jonas and Mitchell were fiddling with what looked like an old HAM radio, pressed close together with a set of headphones between them, grinning and experimenting with the dial.

Evan served up wine to everyone, then grabbed a notebook and a fistful of pens and ordered Ronon, Aiden, and David to pose on John’s couch. He settled into one of the armchairs opposite to draw them.

John and Rodney ended up on the floor on a pile of pillows, an old, well-worn chess set between them. John let Rodney play white, and everyone fell into their own pockets of soft conversation.

“You looked beautiful out there tonight,” Rodney said quietly.

John smiled. “You were amazing,” he said, just as softly. “Dancing with you is amazing.”

“By the way, I heard,” Rodney said. “Congrats on being cast as, um, a swan.”

“Not just _a_ swan,” Mitchell said, “ _The_ Swan.”

John chuckled. “As in _Swan Lake_.”

Rodney had listened to Tchaikovsky’s _Swan Lake_ many times but never seen the ballet. He started to nod, then paused. “Wait, I thought the swan - Odette - was, you know, female.”

“Not in this version,” Evan said. “All the swans are male.”

“But aren’t swans supposed to be pretty and graceful?” Rodney asked.

“The choreographer for this production focused more on the power of the swans, their massive broad wings, and he thought the masculine form better emphasized that aspect of swans - their strength, their sometimes ungainliness, and their capability of violence,” Jonas said. “It’s a very _avant-garde_ interpretation, and also very challenging for the dancers, especially us swans. I’m excited, and very honored to have been cast in it.”

“So...is there a princess?” Rodney asked.

“Nope, but there is a prince, who is me,” Mitchell said.

“So...this version is a gay romance?” Rodney asked.

David hummed thoughtfully. “No. I mean, of course, you can read all kinds of homoerotic subtext into every _pas de deux_ between The Prince and The Swan, but in some ways The Swan is The Prince’s alter ego, all the things he can’t be in real life.”

“That’s very - philosophical. For ballet,” Rodney said.

“We’re gonna be smokin’ hot on stage, though, aren’t we, Shep?” Mitchell cast John a grin, and Evan chastised him, reminded him to stay still.

“Who’re you going to be thinking of while you make kissy faces at me?” John asked.

“Amy,” Mitchell said, without missing a beat. “This girl I had a crush on all through high school. She thought I was gay, of course.”

“Of course,” John drawled. “You know I’ll be thinking of Rodney.”

“You’d better not be thinking of anyone else,” Rodney muttered. “Although I’d be fine with it if you didn’t make kissy faces at Mitchell at all.”

“Oh, no kissy faces from John,” Aiden said wisely. “Just an epic smolder.”

“You? Smolder?” Rodney asked. John had a very sexy smirk, but -

John pushed a piece across the board. “Checkmate.”

Rodney stared. “What?”

John smirked at him, and oh, he was smoldering all right. “You surrender?”

Rodney nodded, his words caught in his throat.

John reached across the board, tipped over Rodney’s king with a flick of his finger. “I win.”

“Yes, you do,” Rodney said.

John leaned in, lowered his voice. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rodney lowered his voice to match John’s, though he wasn’t quite sure why.

The intensity in John’s gaze made Rodney’s heart thump oddly yet again.

“I love you,” John whispered.

And Rodney’s heart soared. “I love you too.” He leaned in, kissed John, and once again, they were the only people in the world.

Until Ronon said, “Wait, does being a swan mean you wear feathers?”

“Not actual feathers, no,” Evan began, and John and the others laughed.

Rodney pushed the chessboard aside and gathered John into his arms, and he knew this was his perfect pleasure.


End file.
